Input to the Global Study on Women, Peace and Security – GPPAC
Strengthening peace and security approaches through long-term prevention of conflict,
human security strategies and documentation of local women’s voices
Paper submission to the Global Study on Women, Peace and Security
By GPPAC, April 2015
Resources supporting this paper
● Recommendations and country-specific analysis by GPPAC’s regional Gender
Focal Points, available in the online community Taking Women Beyond 1325
● GPPAC’s publication Empowerment and Protection - Stories of Human Security
● GPPAC articles on gender & conflict prevention, funding for the development and
the GPS agenda, people-centred security
● On-going action research on normative obstacles to women’s participation in
peacebuilding by GPPAC, WPP, and Cordaid (publication forthcoming late 2015)
Conflict prevention focus of this paper
The following recommendations of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict
(GPPAC) propose a conflict prevention approach throughout the Global Study, in three priority
areas. We support our recommendations with examples on a country and regional basis, illustrating
how recommendations can be adapted to local realities. While our input relates mainly to the
Prevention chapter (VI) of the Study, it also addresses issues that are listed in other chapters (notably
chapters II, V and VIII), as well as the theme of security which comes back throughout the Study.
Our recommendations in brief:
1. Provide long-term support to local civil society, and to women as agents within civil
society movements.
2. Adopt a Gender, Peace and Human Security strategy to implement the WPS agenda.
3. Support access to and capacity building on communication and technology, enabling
women to enhance their voices and document their perspectives in policymaking.
Our recommendations are grounded in our global network of civil society experts and specifically in
the perspectives of our regional Gender Focal Points, who have monitored the implementation of
UNSCR 1325 at the level of their countries and communities and through GPPAC activities around the
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Input to the Global Study on Women, Peace and Security – GPPAC
Resolution’s anniversary in New York. We particularly welcomed the adoption of UNSCR 2122, which
has mandated the Global Study, as well as the adoption of CEDAW General Recommendation 30, as
two policies that outline very concrete steps on advancing women’s active contributions and
leadership in conflict prevention. The Global Study should provide the next stepping-stone, and
ensure that UNSCR 1325 is perceived not only as a post-conflict resolution but also as an instrument
to prevent conflict and the resurgence of violence, and to strengthen women’s agency in both.
Key concerns and challenges related to conflict prevention
Despite the advances in policies, our Gender Focal Points have repeatedly shared key concerns on
the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda from a prevention perspective. Those
concerns have changed very little over the years. Our members highlight the discrepancy between
available policies, their implementation, and real change for women on the ground. They observe
that there are often poor linkages between peace and development, coupled with an increasing
focus on “hard” security by states. A preference for short-term projects among donors makes it
difficult to sustain long-term relationships, which are so crucial to building peace. Finally, in practice,
women continue to be addressed predominantly as (potential) victims of violence and passive
recipients of support, rather than as actors who shape their own reality. Many of these concerns
relate to deep-rooted obstacles to women's participation and leadership in peacebuilding; an area
in which GPPAC and partners are currently conducting further research to propose concrete action
during this year’s review of UNSCR 1325.
The key concerns of our members inform GPPAC’s recommendations to the Global Study, which are
grouped along three priority areas in order to submit targeted input. We support the
recommendations with a number of examples, which illustrate the need to adapt the
recommendations to specific country- and regional contexts, based on local civil society analysis.
Recommendations on conflict prevention for inclusion in the Global Study
1. Provide long-term support to local civil society, and to women as agents within civil society
movements. A truly preventive approach goes beyond conflict early warning: It requires
investment in building long-term relationships and knowledge that help to prevent both new and
resurgent armed conflict. It is informed by a gender analysis of conflict dynamics. It includes
support to peace education and dialogue to foster tolerance, acceptance, and mutual respect.
Conflict prevention initiatives are ideally locally-led and locally-owned, rooted in the knowledge of
local civil society organisations.
We call on Member States, the UN, regional organisations and donors to:
1.1 Create spaces to actively listen and gather inputs and recommendations from
those affected by the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda.
1.2 Respond to challenges as defined locally and ensure local ownership of solutions,
rather than seeking “buy-in” from local partners.
1.3 Provide multi-year support to foster long-term cooperation among grassroots
women, and to strengthen women’s agency in broader peacebuilding movements.
Specifically support peacebuilding organisations and networks that actively include a
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Input to the Global Study on Women, Peace and Security – GPPAC
gender, peace and security perspective, and women as members and leaders in these
movements.
In context: Nepal
As in many conflict-affected countries in Nepal also, women are in a vicious paradox: while
they were the main civilian victims of conflicts, they were powerless to prevent them,
excluded from the negotiations when it comes to their resolution and confined to a marginal
role in the post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation efforts. Women groups and
networks are still playing an active role to accelerate the implementation of NAP 1325 and
1820. At community level, the women groups, and mother groups who are playing active
role in preventing the conflict at micro level of the community.
Concrete recommendations:
● Support civil society to conduct a gender-oriented budget analysis of humanitarian
assistance and post-conflict reconstruction to ensure that women benefit directly
from resources mobilized through multilateral and bilateral donors.
● Adopt constructive measures to guarantee women's socio-economic rights
including employment, property ownership and inheritance during post-conflict
reconstruction.
● Provide special legal and social support to women in order to aid their reporting and
prosecuting of perpetrators of war crimes and human rights abuses committed
during and after conflict
In context: Serbia
Women in Serbia and the region of the Western Balkans represent a majority of actors
involved in civilian peacebuilding and conflict prevention. During the wars in the 1990s, as
well as in the present, women play a crucial part in two areas of conflict prevention: peace
and conflict resolution education and anti-war activism. Building on the fact that a vast
majority of primary and secondary school teachers in Serbia are women, they have taken a
leading role in peace and conflict resolution education. With the reform of the security
sector more women are joining the security structures which were previously and
traditionally more male-dominated. At the same time, women from peacebuilding and
conflict prevention NGOs themselves often do not recognise themselves as active actors and
role models in peacebuilding. Therefore, the greatest benefit from this change would be if
participation of women in the security structures was strengthened with the continuous
support to peace and conflict transformation education. This is the field to which women in
Serbia and the Western Balkans have contribute for over two decades, and their
contributions to building peace in the region as teachers and peace education specialists
need to be acknowledged and supported.
Concrete recommendations:
● In dealing with countries currently in the EU pre-accession phase and dealing with
institutional reform, the emphasis/incentive tends to be for participation of women
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Input to the Global Study on Women, Peace and Security – GPPAC
in the military and police, previously a men-dominated domain. It is crucial to
recognise the value and significance of civilian peacebuilding and especially peace
education as fields to which women have contributed greatly and which represent
the only continuous investment in the upbringing of future generations oriented
towards peaceful conflict resolution.
In context: Azerbaijan
The conflicts in the South Caucasus are an underlying feature of the region’s postindependence history. The unresolved political situations stemming from the armed conflicts
of the late 80s and early 90s remain among the most serious impediments to long-term, just,
inclusive and sustainable development for all of the peoples in the region. Today, hundreds
of thousands of people have a direct connection to those times. They include internally
displaced persons, refugees, returnees, war invalids, families with lost loved ones, as well as
numerous communities that live in close proximity to the militarised borders that have
fragmented the region and create a pervasive sense of insecurity and instability.
Unfortunately, rather than empowering women and raising them up in the eyes of their
communities, their post-conflict burdens have tied them down more in the domestic domain
and distanced them even further from public participation or political decision making.
Works with women activists in conflict-affected communities has shown that civil society
development delivers concrete value to such communities by filling many of the vacuums
that presently exist. Small, local level activist groups can contribute to building a sense of
community, facilitate community decision-making, deliver reliable information, reach the
most vulnerable groups and represent community interests with authorities. Such activities
respond directly to people’s social, informational, and in some cases physical isolation. In
addition, the types of skills developed through such work respond precisely to the sense of
marginalisation that people feel. The most effective community activists become proactive
in engaging with authorities and the general population. They become effective
communicators who are sensitive to and analytical about the needs of their communities.
Concrete recommendations:
● Invest in gender expertise that will allow them to deliver in a clear way the crosscutting nature of gender as an analytical tool that has a practical application in
political, social and economic development and that the mainstreaming of gender
into their policy approach to the region be represented actively at the political level
● Put gender equality at the top of the agenda for development and reform,
emphasising the contribution of gender equality to social, political, and economic
life.
● Work within conflict-affected communities to create a base of active citizens that
act as an intermediary between the people and the authorities.
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Input to the Global Study on Women, Peace and Security – GPPAC
2. Adopt a Gender, Peace and Human Security strategy to implement the WPS agenda. Effective
human security strategies build on local citizen’s needs at the nexus of development, security and
human rights. They can transform the citizen-state relationship, making the state more
responsive, trustworthy, and accountable while empowering citizens to participate in governance
and to address social conflicts. An effective, gender-responsive human security strategy also
responds to the security challenges of women. Women face threats that uniquely relate to their
social inequality, exposing them to greater security threats and simultaneously limiting their
sources of addressing them. Women’s security can be strengthened by a focus on human security,
as it focuses on local security needs. Similarly, women’s security can serve as an indicator to
assess overall human security.
We call on Member States, the UN, regional organisations, security providers and donors to:
2.1 Address the specific security challenges faced by women through a human security
approach, building on locally identified security concerns and supporting measures to
address them. This includes women’s involvement in security sector governance and
reform and in processes of combating the illicit trade of arms and the misuse of small
arms and light weapons.
2.2 Facilitate a human security strategy that incorporates the gender perspectives of
both men and women. In such a strategy, women and men should be equally involved
and be able to support each other in negotiating gender relations, in order to leverage
opportunities for change.
2.3 Pioneer a human security approach in the practice of implementing UNSCR 1325.
This should focus on two specific aspects: first, taking a people-centred approach to
implementation of UNSCR 1325, including through Action Plans at national and regional
levels. Second, placing emphasis on empowerment in practice, based on a critical review
of engagement policies and practice, and the norms underlying them.
In context: The process to develop “Stories of Human Security”
For GPPAC, and the peacebuilding practitioners in our network, the idea of human security in the sense of people-centred security - is relevant because a society where people feel
safe, secure and included, and where individuals feel empowered to realise their potential, is
more likely to be a peaceful society. It is about recognising that there are many dimensions
to what feeling safe and secure means, and that that will be different in each specific
context.
In the process of the project Empowerment and Protection – Stories of Human Security,
GPPAC worked with local civil society organisations in six different countries and regions:
Afghanistan, Ukraine, Palestine, The Philippines, Zimbabwe and Mexico. Part of our
collective interest was to test whether the - often-academic - debate on human security had
any relevance to the people and communities they work with in their conflict prevention and
peacebuilding work. Three broad questions guided our research:
- What causes insecurity/ what is a threat to your security
- What do you do to ensure you are protected against these threats (patterns of
coping with insecurities)
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Input to the Global Study on Women, Peace and Security – GPPAC
-
Who or what do you turn to, or rely on, to ensure your security (security providers)
Key findings included that:
- The state was often central to the discussion on human security: it was an expected
security provider; even in places where it was currently undermining rather than providing
security. For example, in Ukraine, the issue of corruption in the state system was central, yet
the expectation on the state to deliver was still there.
- Rule of Law was one the most highlighted types of security provision across the different
contexts; people spoke of the need for trust in ‘the system’, accountability, and justice. For
example, the existence of civic-government policy platforms has enabled Mexican citizens to
become more powerful in their relationships with the state.
- Whilst empowerment has so far been a neglected part of the human security debate, the
case studies demonstrated how we also need empowered communities to ensure the right
kind of protection. For example, Indigenous Peoples in Mindanao, the Philippines, are
lobbying for the Indigenous People’s Rights Act to be safeguarded in the framework of the
new Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).
- The achievement of human security, or human security strategies, can be linked with
situations where security dialogues enhance the social contract between the state and
citizens; where the participants are all change agents and not simply recipients of
protection. In Zimbabwe, local peace committees involve a cross-section of community
members, local authorities and local service providers to discuss human security issues and
mediate solutions ranging from community to domestic violence.
- Cultural and psychological barriers, particularly in traditional societies, often prevent
women from participating in community decision-making or in disclosing their experiences
of gender-based violence. Such obstacles reinforce the need for a people-centred approach
and an emphasis on empowerment to ensure women’s participation. The practical
application of a people-centred approach in the security field can learn from the global
efforts to address women’s specific security needs and the development of gendersensitive approaches. The UN Security Council Resolution (SCR) 1325 is built on a strategy of
prevention, participation, and protection, which are key human security principles. By
emphasising consultative processes and women’s participation in formulating security
policies, SCR 1325 is an opportunity to ensure women’s participation in public dialogue.
In context: Eastern and Central Africa region
The biggest challenge in our region is the continuing perception that security is to do with
military defence, which most often is led by men. When matters of building peace and
security and conflict prevention come up, the leadership and participation is mostly male,
especially when it comes to decision-making. If women come on board at all, it is only after a
lot of lobbying, or they are “added on” as an afterthought and unable to have real influence
on decisions taken.
Concrete recommendations:
● Support women-led as well as gender-sensitive initiatives to address root causes of
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Input to the Global Study on Women, Peace and Security – GPPAC
●
many of the conflicts in this region, as identified by them, such as poverty, greed
and poor governance – especially in areas of skills building and financial support.
Pay attention to how UNSCR 1325 and related policy instruments are implemented
in practice by the very governments that sign and ratify them, which should also
include taking action to resource implementation and monitoring.
3. Support access to and capacity building on communication and technology, enabling women to
enhance their voices and document their perspectives in policymaking. Supporting the (self-)
documentation of women’s voices, through technologies that can be made available in and
adapted for use in local contexts, is an area that remains seriously under-resourced. Investments
in research, media and ICT platforms created by and for women are crucial to ensure
documentation and evidence in support of policy design, and to inspire and foster solidarity
among women across regions. A truly effective use of communication technologies including
community radio, video documentaries, and methodologies dealing with information surveillance,
should also help foster the individual and collective security of women peace builders, while
trying to minimize practices that endanger them and their networks.
We call on Member States, the UN, regional organisations and donors to:
3.1 Support communication technologies, research, Media, and ICT platforms for incountry documentation by and for women. This includes supporting different ways of
documenting information (oral, written, art, etc.) and support to appropriate
communication and technological infrastructures defined by local needs.
3.2 Support comprehensive, activist-oriented research and dissemination of research
results in accessible formats such as short audio and video documentaries, tool kits, and
short publications and/or in articles in the media.
3.3 Support capacity building of women’s peace builders in using digital security tools
to enhance their privacy and security. This includes supporting hands-on workshops to
enhance digital self-defence mechanisms to reduce and limit harassment, silencing,
surveillance and targeting of women’s rights advocates in conflict and post-conflict
countries.
In context: Fiji
Women's civil society in Fiji has a rich ‘her' story when it comes to preventing conflict
particularly through a range of approaches since the crises of 2000. This has included
organising vigils, organising rural networks to enable women's participation and interactive
dialogues with government officials particularly through the innovative use of community
media including community radio. In the transition to parliamentary democracy women's
rights groups have been working in partnership to enhance women's political participation.
Concrete recommendations:
● Availability of specific resources for our regional women’s network which was
instrumental in the development and drafting of the Regional Action Plan on
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Input to the Global Study on Women, Peace and Security – GPPAC
●
●
Women, Peace and Security to progress the work – this would also include
mentoring and participation of young women.
In country documentation, research and Media and ICT platforms including the
production of an annual Policy for Peace report.
Resources to mobilise with innovative campaigns and policy advocacy.
In context: Canada
In Canada, women peace activists and researchers have been lobbying and advocating
members of parliament in addition to inform the Canadian public about peacebuilding,
conflict prevention and the important role women play in these issues. As the window for
participation in policy making has been considerably reduced, Canadian women peace
activists have been trying to join forces with other groups and institutions at home and from
all over the world to foster ideas of peace and prevent conflicts. Among them is the creation
of the Women, Peace and Security Network - Canada (WPSN-C) a loose network composed
of Canadian individuals, NGOs, and scholars. First Nations women have also played a key role
in bringing to the fore the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in
Canada. Actions have involved: an attempt to document this scourge in creating databases, a
request for a national inquiry into the missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada,
campaigns such as Idle No More to denounce Canadian bills and/or laws, which are deemed
to heighten the vulnerability of and encroach on the sovereignty of First Nations Peoples.'
Concrete recommendations:
● Support capacity building and exchange on the effective and safe use of
communication technologies, especially for women human rights defenders and
other groups at risk.
● Support activist-oriented research on both best practices and challenges of women
in peacebuilding, including but also going beyond academic research to ensure
broad access to results.
● Foster solidarity and partnerships among groups within countries and across
countries and regions, particularly with First Nations Women.
The Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) is a global member-led
network of civil society organisations who actively work on conflict prevention and peacebuilding.
Our mission is to promote a global shift in peacebuilding from solely reacting to conflict to preventing
conflicts from turning violent. We do this through multi-actor collaboration and local ownership of
strategies for peace and security.
GPPAC advocates for the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women,
peace, and security from the perspective of prevention. We find that interpretations of UNSCR 1325
tend to highlight prevention of violence against women as victims, rather than building on women's
activism to prevent conflict. We place strong emphasis on the need to recognise, highlight and
involve women through their active roles in conflict prevention efforts, as part of any holistic
engagement towards sustainable peace. Our prevention perspective on UNSCR 1325 links closely to
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our advocacy on other relevant policy processes. These include Human Security First, a campaign to
highlight people's local perspectives as a basis for engagements on security; and clear commitments
to peace and conflict prevention in the post-2015 development agenda.
We build on and promote women's active leadership from inside our network. Our gender experts
have been present at events around the anniversary of UNSCR 1325 in New York since 2010, bringing
their local stories to New York-based actors. At home, they also share their perspectives with key
actors in the field, working to connect practices from the local to the regional and global level.
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